I remember the morning I saw that post. A pastor, asked to be an AUTHORITY, full of his own certainty, wrote that he was looking for a wife for his adopted son. He promised houses, salaries, security. He spoke as though marriage were a transaction, a problem to be solved with money. And in that post, the boy himself though physically present was absent. No voice. No choice. No humanity.
People reacted quickly. Some wrote long essays about exploitation. Others simply said, “This is wrong.” But I kept thinking about the boy. His name is David. He does not speak, but he laughs when tickled. He loves the sound of running water. He needs help with dressing, with eating, with the small rituals of daily life also known as life skills. He is autistic, and his world is different, but it is still a world. A world that deserves respect.
I imagined him with Ifeoma, a caregiver who knows the slow art of patience. She holds up picture cards. “David,” she says, “this is water.” She taps the card, then points hand. Day after day, she repeats the exercise. And one afternoon, David taps the card himself. A small victory, but it belongs to him.
Again, I imagined him in occupational therapy, practicing how to brush his teeth. The therapist guides his hand, step by step, until the motion becomes familiar.
I imagined him again in social skills groups, learning to sit with other children, to share space, to wait his turn. These are not grand gestures, but they are the building blocks of independence.
The pastor’s post imagined marriage as a cure for urges. But what David needs is structure, therapy, compassion. He needs a society that sees him not as a burden, but as a person with potential. He needs inclusion, not transactions.
The wrong was in erasing his humanity, in treating women as commodities, in imagining marriage as a solution. The right is in seeing him, truly seeing him, and giving him the tools to live with dignity.
And so the story does not end with a wife bought with promises. It ends with hope. Hope that with social skills training, speech therapy, occupational therapy, and community support, David can thrive. Hope that society can learn to respect difference. Hope that we can all remember that every human being deserves dignity, not transactions. Written by Henrietta Ikediashi for SOULution NEST EDUCATION INITIATIVE ©️ March 29 2026
